Electrochemical devices are power sources for electronic appliances, etc. As the use of batteries is enlarged to applications for the storage of energy for portable telephones, camcorders, notebook computers, personal computers and electric vehicles, efforts on the research and development of batteries are increasingly embodied.
Meanwhile, since the electrochemical devices have been in increasing demand, counterfeits thereof have been distributed more and more. Such counterfeits have lower safety than authentic products. However, when an electrochemical device causes explosion due to the counterfeit, it is difficult to check the authenticity of the device. Therefore, there has been an imminent need for a method for checking the authenticity of an electrochemical device.
According to the prior art, there has been suggested a method for checking the authenticity of an electrochemical device by incorporating a semiconductor capable of communicating with the main body of an electronic appliance into the electrochemical device. However, the above method requires an additional space for housing the semiconductor inside the device, so that the space for receiving electrodes inside the device grows smaller. This ultimately results in a drop in the capacity of a battery. Additionally, such introduction of a semiconductor into the electrochemical device causes degradation of the productivity and cost-efficiency.